- Wifi: CSS_Summer_School/Password: Summer2023
- This morning:
- Introduction: What are CSS?
- Presentation/Schedule/More Logistics!
- Introduction: What are CSS?
Logistics
Logistics
- My co-organizers: Felix Lennert, Julien Boelaert, Yacine Chitour, Gaston Vermersch.
- Our interns team: Anthonin Izoret, Solene Moro, Olivier Pinatel, Marie-Amélie Ruiz-Dormet
- The CREST and its administrative team (Teddy, Leyla, Fanda, Alexandra, Tristan, Eliane, Nawal, Lyza…)
- For material support The SICSS team, the SSRC, HI! Paris, ECODEC, French taxpayers.
What are Computational Social Sciences?
Computational Social Sciences
- Harnessing the power of computers to carry out (social) scientific research
- An interdisciplinary endeavor
- A set of methods more than a field
Computational Social Sciences
- Computers? Nothing new!
- (Kashyap, 2021): “Demography has long used computer data”
- But since the 2000s, two changes:
+ Data abundance
+ Computer power
What are Computational Social Sciences?
- The same remark holds true in many disciplines: the combination of more data and more power did create massive opportunities for research.
- CSS are trying to make the most of this new social & technical configuration.
Doing Research in the Big Data Era
Is more data better? Polarized views
Doing Research in the Big Data Era
Is more data better? Polarized views
A Threefold Promise
- Empirical
- Investigating old questions anew
- Asking new questions
- Investigating old questions anew
A Threefold Promise
- Empirical
- Ex. Studying couple formation in the 21st century
A Threefold Promise
- Empirical
- Ex. Studying couple formation in the 21st century
- Ex. Studying couple formation in the 21st century
A Threefold Promise
- Methodological
A Classic Distinction: Sample, and Population
But what if you could collect all data in the time it takes to collect a sample?
If your data is digitized, well-organized, this could be possible
A Threefold Promise
- Methodological
- Ex. A study on interdisciplinarity in Economics
- Idea: Looking at citations
- Data: 5 journals, over a century
- 24,500 articles
- 600,000 references
- Ex. A study on interdisciplinarity in Economics
in Fourcade, Ollion & Algan, “The Superiority of Economists,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2015.
A Threefold Promise
- Theoretical
A Threefold Promise BUT
A Threefold Promise
- Methodological
N = All, a rather rare case
A Threefold Promise
Promises are still in the waiting
The lessons of the history of science need to be heeded
- “Social physics”?
- Does more data lead to more “theory”?
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
- Ex. Medical density / localization in a given town
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data sometimes in real time
- Nowcasting
- Nowcasting
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data sometimes in real time
- Merging data
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data sometimes in real time
- Producing data:
Experiments
- Producing data:
Experiments
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data sometimes in real time
- Producing data: mass collaboration
Making the Most of these Opportunities
- Collecting data sometimes in real time
- Producing data:
artificial intelligence
Do, Shen & Ollion, « The Augmented Social Scientist »
Using AI to extract sentence-levels forms of narration in politics
- Producing data:
artificial intelligence
Conclusion
- CSS: making the most of a socio-technological change while avoiding unfettered techno-enthusiasm
- A wide gamut of methods
E. Ollion, J. Boelaert, “Au-delà des big data. Les sciences sociales face à la multiplication des données numériques”, in Sociologie, 2015.